#iapygia

Dionysus looks so tired here "Pour me a nice one, it's been a rough day"

the name: religio iapygiorum is latin for “(the) religion* of the Iapygians.”

as far as i’m currently aware, this is not a term that’s ever used or discussed in surviving literature or inscriptions! i decided to name the blog this mostly as a parallel to the term religio romana. i’m still not sure i should be using a latin term when iapgyians didn’t start speaking latin until roman colonization, tbh, but it’s the best i’ve got for now.

*as religio romana folks will know, the word religio doesn’t map perfectly onto the concept of “religion.”

the location: “Iapygia” more or less corresponds to modern-day Apulia (Latin & English name) or Puglia (Italian name): the southeasternmost region of modern Italy. Apulia/Puglia are directly etymologically derived from Iapygia.

this area was (probably?) divided into three people groups: the Daunians in the northwest, the Messapians in the southeast, and the Peucetians in between. more on the uncertainty of this division & these names in a later post.

here’s a map taken from the book The Italic People of Ancient Apulia by T.H. Carpenter et al (which I will definitely refer to again—it’s the most comprehensive English-language resource I’ve found):

Oooo glad you asked!

Since we don't have any surviving texts from Daunia until Hellenistic times most of what we know about them comes from their stelae and unique pottery. Here's some resources that provide a pretty good base in my opinion:

Camilla Norman's "People of Ancient Daunia: Voicing the Statue-Stelae" is a book dedicated entirely to examining these unique monuments. Though it's not fully available online, the first stretch of the book (5 chapters) can be accessed through Google Books, and it gives a pretty good rundown of the origins of the Daunians and their art, as well as typologies, artistic parallels, a history of scholarship... It's jam-packed with information. It's also one the most recent resources linked here (2024), so if you want to be up to date fast this is the way to go.

Norman also has a website where you can access an archive of every known stela and filter by type, represented figures/scenes... Also a really awesome resource for visual reference.

Here's a couple papers by Norman worth checking out:

The tribal tattooing of Daunian Women

Illyrian Vestiges in Daunian Costume: tattoos, string aprons and a helmet

Maria Luisa Nava is one of the pioneers of Daunian research so her papers are also worth checking out. Here's some I'd reccommend (these are in Italian):

Le stele della Daunia nel quadro del megalitismo mediterraneo

Le gesta degli uomini, dei cavalieri e degli eroi nellla vita e nel mito sulle stele daunie

Lastly, I have to mention Maria Laura Leone, who has published on the Daunians as well, with a special interest in their attested use of opium, such as "Daunian opium and the concepts revealed by images", as well as these two papers on the iconography on the stelae by other researchers (I tried to use as much recent research as possible but these two are a bit older. Also only in Italian.): Iconografie greche nel mondo indigeno della Daunia, Il repertorio figurato delle stele della Daunia

Do keep in mind that this is a relatively young discipline of study so there's still a whole lot of uncertainties about the Daunians (especially compared to the other Iapygian peoples they neighboured, who did leave inscriptions and came in contact with the Greeks much earlier), so there's not much we definitively know about their beliefs for example, and things like the classification of stelae will differ drastically between Norman and Nava. That being said, the Daunians have left behind a large amount of absolutely fascinating material culture to study and they are very underappreciated, so I hope these resources spark some interest!

Thanks for asking and if you need anything more specific do let me know!

Closest thing I have been able to find are these Greek vases depicting what the MET describes as Oscans, which were present in a large area of the South of Italy including northern Puglia, aka Daunia, so I assume the Daunians (particularly the men, the women in these vases are not identified as Oscans and might just be Messapians/ Apulian Greeks) may have worn something similar.

The second image is particularly interesting to me because the headdresses they're wearing are reminiscent of the ones featured on some Daunian stelae, so I wonder if that's what they're meant to depict and thus if this was assimilated by the Daunians from Oscan culture (though if I'm remembering correctly the stelae with this headress have all been identified as female (don't quote me on that lol), while the vases show this headress on male figures only). These vases are however from the 4th century BC, while the stelae date from the 8th to the 6th, so I'm not sure they can be trusted as accurate representations of Oscan clothing in the 8th and 6th centuries, much less for Daunian clothing, since the connection between the Oscans in these vases and the Daunians is merely speculation

Then of course we have the tattooed arms of Daunian women (really interesting subject btw), both from the stelae and this tomb fresco in Arpi, which also gives a tiny and fragmentary glimpse at the clothing:

As well as this really frequent hairstyle from the stelae, which has been interpreted by some as a long braid with a dried poppy plant tied to it, given the abundance of poppy imagery in Daunian art.

THE CAT VASE :O

also a Daunian olla! and I think the black ones are also Daunian? but certainly with some Greek influence

.: major iapygian deity, possibly a chthonic protector :.

[IMG TRANSCRIPTION: Daxtas Ψaotorrihi. SOURCE: S. Marchesini, “Epigraphe messapiche del Salento," 78.]

.: :.

The sanctuary at Grotta della Poesia ("Cave of Poetry"), pictured below, was dedicated to Taotor. The sanctuary clearly attracted visitors from all over the Mediterranean, based on votive inscriptions found in a number of languages; however, Taotor doesn't appear to have been syncretized with any Roman or Greek deities.

[IMG DESCRIPTION: photo of a natural sinkhole cave along the Salentine coast. SOURCE: Lino M on Flickr]

Grotta della Poesia is a difficult place to get to: Lomas (see below) suggests it might have only been accessible by boat until more recently. The fact that so many people journeyed there despite the difficulty suggests this sanctuary, and therefore worship of Taotor, was clearly significant. Taotor is also placed particularly prominently among a series of three deities on an altar at Rudiae.

Analysis of certain Messapic inscriptions suggests an association of Taotor with the infernal, and Lamboley (cited below) suggests that perhaps Taotor signifies “protector” or “savior”—appropriate names for a chthonic deity being petitioned for aid. Santoro, on the other hand, suggests a relationship with the Indo-European root *teutā, meaning “community” or “civilization.” Taotor is given the epithet Andirahas in inscriptions at Grotta della Poesia.

.: :.

Sources:

Auriemma, Rita, and Flavia Frisone. “I Santuari Costieri Del Salento.” In Nel Mare Dell’intimità. L’archeologia Subacquea Racconta l’Adriatico. 284–285. Roma: Gangemi Editore, 2017.

Lamboley, J.-L. Recherches sur les Messapiens. Roma: École Française de Rome, 1996, 434-5.

Kathryn Lomas. “Crossing Boundaries: The Inscribed Votives of Southeast Italy.” Pallas, no. 86 (October 30, 2011): 311–29. https://doi.org/10.4000/pallas.2208.

Marchesini, Simona. 2015. “Epigrafi messapiche del Salento.” l’Idomeneo 19: 69–78. https://doi.org/10.1285/I20380313V19P69.